Parent Information for School Choice: Evaluation of Information Display Strategies
Contract Information
Current Status:
This study has been completed.
Duration:
October 2015 – October 2018
Cost:
$1,594,337
Contract Number:
ED-IES-15-C-0048
Contractor(s):
Mathematica Policy Research
Tembo
Contact:
Reports
School choice has increased dramatically in recent years, with the goal of providing parents the opportunity to selects those schools that best meet their families' needs. For school choice to work well, parents need to be able to understand and make use of information about the school characteristics they value most, such as where schools are located, academic performance, available resources, and safety. However, surveys suggest families struggle with the school choice information provided by districts and school choice intermediaries. This study addresses the need for rigorous research that identifies effective ways to display school choice information and that explores how different strategies may shape parents' ultimate school decisions
- Which formats make school choice information displays easiest to understand and use? (For example, is it better to show school performance data with numbers, graphs, or icons?)
- How does the amount of information displayed affect understanding and use? (For example, how much information about school performance should be shown? Should displays include district averages or parent survey data?)
- How does the amount of information displayed affect understanding and use? (For example, how much information about school performance should be shown? Should displays include district averages or parent survey data?)
A low–cost, quick turnaround "lab" based experiment was carried out in 2017 where about 3,500 low-income parents of school-aged children participated online. Parents were randomly assigned to view one of 72 versions of a school choice information display and then answered survey questions about their understanding of the information, ability to use the information, and which schools they would select based on the information they were provided. To address the three research questions, responses to these survey questions will be compared across the various information displays tested.
"Presenting School Choice Information to Parents: An Evidence-Based Guide" was released in October 2018.
- Parents were most satisfied with school data showing graphs in addition to numbers, but displays using numbers only were most understandable. Research outside of education indicates that graphs and icons, such as color coded letter grades, can help people organize and interpret information. The study found parents preferred school information displays that included graphs but better understood the information without these additional visual representations.
- A higher amount of information was more satisfying to parents, with one exception. Parents were more satisfied with displays showing multiple indicators to describe schools' distance from home, academics, safety, and resources than they were with displays showing just one indicator for each. Likewise, displays that added ratings from parent surveys were more satisfying. However, more information was not always better. For example, displays that added district averages — meant to provide context for each school's profile — were actually less preferred.
- Parents chose higher performing schools when schools were ordered by academic quality but were most satisfied with displays that ordered schools by distance from home. The study compared displays that ordered schools from closest to farthest from home to those that ordered schools from highest to lowest academic quality. Parents both best understood and preferred schools ordered by distance from home. But when displays were ordered by academic quality, parents chose schools with higher academic quality.